Gemma Colby
Head of Customer Experience
Yell UK
United Kingdom
Aarthi is the recipient of the judges' select Digital Transformation Award.
Yell’s heritage as a provider of analogue services might’ve easily left the business in the dust in the digital age, but instead it continues to adapt and prosper as a digital service provider, with customer experience increasingly central to its evolution.
Gemma Colby is responsible for heading up CX for Yell in the UK, and applying customer experience strategy to help deliver on the company’s digital ambitions.
Over the course of her two year tenure, Gemma and her CX team have been responsible for rolling out numerous initiatives, including an insight function that aims to “bring the voice of the customer to life with actionable insight” and a number of new digital product offerings including a chatbot called Hartley that takes on responding to service enquiries and a Help Centre that allows customers to find answers to their questions.
They’ve also been responsible for launching a new asynchronous channel for customers to message service staff, creating an automated order processing journey that’s resulted in 90% of all orders being automated, and the design of customer journeys for two new digital products that have come to market in the past 12 months.
Gemma has been instrumental in establishing Yell’s membership of the Institute of Customer Service and helping to champion the company’s first ever National Customer Service Week (NCSW), which included senior leaders from across the business live listening to calls and helped cement the importance of service and CX as a core objective in the business. Gemma has also established a senior monthly forum with attendance by the CEO and senior leadership teams to focus on nothing but the CX offered to customers.
Over the last 12 months, brand NPS has increased to 62% at the company whilst digital interactions have grown by over 40% and complaints have more than halved. Yell has also undertaken a significant reduction in repeat messaging contacts, often a source of much customer inconvenience.
I'm proud of the impact the work I have done has had on Yell's customers and colleagues over the last year. The work I have done has made a significant difference to the Yell experience our customers have whether that's talking to us through our new digital channel, serving themselves or interacting with our products. I know that the insight we have shared with the business, the conversations we are having and the questions we are asking is really making people think differently about their role in improving Yell's customer experience.”
Gemma was also the 2021 recipient of the Digital Transformation award by the judging panel:
“Yell has been on a journey from being a purely print business to a purely digital business, but in the last 12 months it has evolved its digital offering dramatically through its Digital First Programme. This included a new asynchronous chat customer channel, a branded chatbot and a help centre to ensure customers have easy, reliable ways to contact them, even if they are on the go, ensuring a prompt response and query resolution.”
- CX Leader of the Year judges
